NEH-UT Collaborative Project for the Development and Implementation of Oral Assessment Materials. A Manual and Practical Guide for the Classroom Testing of Spoken Russian Using Authentic Task-Specific Assessment Rubrics.

Texas Univ., Austin. Dept. of Slavic Languages.

The National Endowment for the Humanities and University of Texas (NEH-UT) collaborative project was established to develop authentic and practical tests of spoken Russian for younger, beginning students of Russian, and to create a guide for their implementation into instruction. The development process involved teachers of Russian at the middle, junior high, and high school levels and college level. The resulting assessment materials are designed to accompany a widely-used "Face to Face" Russian textbook series and provide a model for development and use of authentic oral assessment rubrics for similar textbooks. During the school year following creation of the materials, the participating pre-college teachers introduced the tests into their curricula as preparation for their presentation and dissemination nationally. The report chronicles the need assessment and goal-setting process, outlines the rationale for authentic assessment, discusses the generic oral assessment approach used, makes suggestions for classroom implementation, and presents the assessment rubrics by chapter in the "Face to Face" series. Appended materials include contact information, the generic oral testing rubric, scoring sheets, and a blank rubric form. (MSE)